One of the more interesting figures of art history was the master
of design, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Beyond being known for his designs, he was a great illustrator,
painter, and poster maker who immortalized the Paris and Montmartre cabaret clubs, most famously the Moulin Rouge. He began his life with his wealthy
French family. His parents (who were also first cousins) separate when he was four and he would live most of his young (and
adult) life in Paris living with his mother. His father set him up with his first drawing lessons when Henri was about nine
years old. This instruction came from René Princeteau, a deaf-mute artist who painted animals.
It was evident when he was about ten that he was short for his age. This was due to a calcium deficiency. His small brittle
bones broke somewhat easily. At the age of fourteen, being the size of an average six year old, he broke his left thighbone.
Through his long recovery he spent a great deal of time drawing and painting. The following year he broke his right thighbone
as he was walking with him mom. His legs were done growing and this gave him a dwarf-like appearance, reaching a height of
four feet six inches tall. "I had placed my stick on the table, as I do every evening. It had been specially
made to suit my height, to enable me to walk without too much difficulty. As I was standing up, a customer called to me: 'Monsieur,
don't forget your pencil.' It was very unkind, but most funny." Again this gave him an opportunity to create a lot
of art. By the time he was sixteen, he had created some 2,400 drawings. "I
am certainly not regenerating French art, but am struggling hard to accomplish something on an unlucky piece of paper which
has done me no harm at all, and on which, believe me, I am doing nothing that is good....I hope things will improve eventually;
as it is, I am pretty wretched."

From early on in his life, Toulouse-Lautrec quickly moved
toward a career in art. At the age of seventeen he made the career official, moving in with Princeteau in Paris. Soon he would
meet and learns from artists like Jean-Louis Forain, Henri Rachou, and
Léon Bonnat. Bonnat was a famed exhibiting artist and a teacher at the Académie de Paris at the
time. Although Bonnat gave little respect to Henri, he moved to work in Bonnat's studio. He moved on to work at Ferdon Cormon’s studio where he met other artists like François Gauzi, Emile Bernard, and Vincent van Gogh. "In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their
justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing
only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature." Actually, Henri and Vincent were good friends. Vincent made
it a point to visit Toulouse-Lautrec on his last trip to Paris, only three weeks before committing suicide. On the other
hand, Henri challenged a man to a dual for insulting van Gogh. He was also friendly with Edgar Degas, Oscar Wilde, and James McNeill Whistler, whom Toulouse-Lautrec looked
to as examples of great men and artists. For a short time he worked under the name "Treclau", an anagram of Lautrec.

On October fifth, 1889, the Moulin Rouge opens and Toulouse-Lautrec
becomes a regular. He even had a table reserved and displayed his work there. All of his greatest works center on the human
form. Whether in the street or at the show, the people in the works captivate the viewer. "Only the human
figure exists; landscape is, and should be, no more than an accessory; the painter exclusively of landscape is nothing but
a bore. The sole function of landscape is to heighten the intelligibility of the character of the figure. Corot's greatness
is revealed in his figures, likewise that of Millet, Renoir, and of Whistler; when a figure painter executes a landscape he
treats it as if it were a face; Degas' landscapes are unparalleled because they are visionary landscapes. Monet's work would
have been even greater if he had not abandoned figure-painting." He had created A la Mie, the notorious painting of a couple at the Moulin Rouge. He used a photograph to help compose this work that literally
makes Toulouse-Lautrec famous overnight with the Paris elite.

Another of his truely great paintings was simply titled At the Moulin-Rouge. With a self-portrait included into the work (walking beside a tall man at the top of the work) this shows many of his
croud of friends.

At the Moulin-Rouge

1892. Oil on Canvas. 48¼
x 55¼. Art Institute of Chicago, Il. USA.

Toulouse-Lautrec was eager to sell works and make a name for himself
in the art world. At the same time, he would not sell to someone he disliked. In 1896 he refuses to sell a piece to the old
King of Serbia. Toulouse-Lautrec considered him a vulgar "pig farmer." This is quite a statement
from a man that preferred friends that were the outcasts of society. The drunks, prostitutes, and all people most consider
low lives of society. As time passed, he became an unproductive alcoholic. He would eat dinner with his mother before going
out each night. "One should drink little...but often." By 1898 he was rarely sober. Alocholic and
syphilis induced hallucinations and paranoia consumed his life. On one occasion, visiting friends heard gun shorts from his
room, where the found him sitting on his bed shooting at spiders that were not there. This also had a declining affect on
the quality of his work.

After an alcoholic fit of rage in a brothel, he was confined to
a mental hospital from February through May of 1899, but soon reverts to his alcoholic tendencies. On August 15, 1901 he had
a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side. He would soon die at 2:15 am on September 9, in his mothers arms after saying
"Old fool" to his father that was trying to kill a fly. A great artist that developed from only
thirty-six years of life. Over his years he created some 1,000 paintings, 5,000 drawings, and 350 prints and posters. His
mother and his art dealer continued to promote and sell his work. Toulouse-Lautrec’s works have sold for as much as
$14.5 million